


Take this Job (And Shove it Out the Airlock)

by tisfan



Series: Tony Stark Bingo [35]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Drinking, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: All Tony needed was a job…. But really, press-ganging wasn’t his style.Tony Stark Bingo A2 - sci-fi/future AU





	1. The Worst Job Interview Ever

 

Tony tapped his flexi against the bar, summoning another whiskey. The sum on the flexi flashed red for a moment, deducting the creds for the drink. He didn’t really care much for the whiskey on the outer rim planets, but he was trying to avoid attracting attention, and flashing enough flex for Terran casked whiskey would be the opposite of staying on the downlow.

He wasn’t sure if it was the casks made from other planetary trees, or the various synth grains that had been produced to grow well in alien soils didn’t lend themselves well to making whiskey.

There were days when Tony would have slit a few throats for a good cup of whiskey. Those days were gone, and if it didn’t taste good, it at least numbed the pain. At least it was actual alcohol. The last four jobs Tony had were on dry planets -- bathtub gin could get you two years in a tank, and no one wanted that.

He needed a job now, honestly.

He was about two days worth of creds from not having a roof over his head. His last job hadn’t gone so well, and he’d had to jump ship on this podunk world, leaving a hefty contract payment behind. And having another shit mark on his work record.

He took a sip of the shitty brew, trying to ignore the stale black pepper taste.

“You look like a man who’d rather drink piss,” someone said, and Tony blinked up at the blurry man. A few concentrated blinks and Tony managed to congeal the person down to base characteristics. Dark skin, no hair. One eye. A penchant toward black, tight fitting clothing and a flapping black coat over it.

“Are you real?”

“Son, I’m the realest damn person you will ever meet. You’re Stark.”

“You looking to hire me, or cash in on the bounty?” Tony shifted his hand, the nanotech forming a repulsor on his palm.

“I don’t care about the price on your head,” the man said. “I’m Fury.”

“And I’m a fan of lust, if we’re going for the seven deadly sins.”

“I would like to consult you on a special project.”

“Am I supposed to look at the eye or the patch? I might be a bit drunk here,” Tony said.

“Natasha, take him,” the man said.

Sudden pain jabbed into his throat and he turned to see the redheaded waitress standing there. “Could you just-- not do something awful for five seconds while I figure out what’s going on? Am I gonna wake up in a bathtub full of ice with my organs missing?”

“I’d apologize, but I have urgent business and--”

“You’re not sorry,” Tony slurred, slumping into the arms of the redhead and the bronky blond she seemed to summon with a jerk of her chin. “Help, I am being press-ganged!”

“No one cares,” the blond said. “They don’t mess with us.”

Tony knew there was some witty repartee somewhere, but he lost consciousness before he could think of something clever to say.

***

Tony woke up with a headache and a girl in his bed. Neither of these things was unusual. The fact that the woman was fully dressed and pointing a gun at him, that… well, it wasn’t even that unusual, albeit disappointing.

“Why do I feel like the first words out of your mouth are along the general theme of, _we have ways of making you do as we wish_? Come on, really. Get new material,” Tony said. He was not, apparently, chained to the bed. Or restrained in any manner.

He’d had worse mornings, although he might just about go for broke unless there was coffee in his immediate future.

“Well, then I don’t need to say it, do I?” she quipped. He thought her name was Natasha, or at least that’s what Fury called her. It would do, at least for a while. “Far be it from me to destroy your fantasy escapade of mouthing off to the bad guys until you have your moment.”

“There’s always a moment.”

“And I always step on it,” she said.

There wasn’t much in the room; simple bed, dresser, bedside table. Boring, white walls, industrial tiling floor. Could have been anything from apartment to a hotel to a hospital. At least it wasn’t a coffin hotel; those sucked.

“So, why don’t you tell me what you want me to do before I tell you to stick it,” Tony said. “And, aside from general firearm safety, could you point that somewhere else? I’m generally more pleasant to talk to when I’m not being threatened.” They wouldn’t get what they wanted from him; Tony never gave in to threats, but they might as well at least start out with the illusion of courtesy.

“What-- oh, this? I’m sorry, I forgot,” Natasha said, and if Tony hadn’t thought that was preposterous, he might actually have believed her. Her delivery was great. Excellent, really. “I just didn’t want you to jump me when you woke up.”

“Happens a lot, does it?”

“Sometimes, Mr. Stark,” Fury said, coming into the room. He hadn’t unlocked the door, as far as Tony could tell, which might mean the door was open for the escaping, although there were two of them and Tony was--

Huh. Still in all his gear, including his repulsor gloves. This might be easier than he thought.

“Well,” Tony said, hesitantly, “I’m sure I’m flattered, but I don’t want to join your secret boy band. The rock-glam look is just bad on me. Why should I deny the universe the opportunity to look at my face.”

“Mostly because it’s all over wanted posters everywhere?” the blond guy said, following along. “Got breakfast for you.”

“If there’s no coffee, I don’t want it.”

“Is there such a thing as no coffee? I would cry,” the guy said. “Here.”

He poured Tony a mug, then sipped out of it, as if to prove it wasn’t poisoned or anything, although even Tony knew how that went. There were all sorts of poisons that had pre-dosing antidotes.

But whatever. It smelled good enough that Tony wasn’t sure he cared. “This is awfully nice for people who had to kidnap me.”

“No, we had to make it _look_ like we were kidnapping you,” Fury corrected. It was getting a little crowded in Tony’s-- whatever it was. Bedroom. Not that he minded a crowd or an orgy, but he usually liked to pick his partners.

“Congrats, you succeeded,” Tony said. “I’m growing less inclined to help you by the second.”

“We need your help, and we think the mission’s of interest to you,” Natasha said.

Tony took a sip of his coffee. Damn, actual bean. Fresh roasted, too. “I’m listening.”

Fury tapped his flexi and pushed an image into the air. It was an image he recognized. “This is Captain America. His ship crash-landed on a planet decades ago, along with an item of unspeakable power. The Tesseract.”

Tony’s hand didn’t move to hover over his heart, but he knew the tesseract. His arc-reactor worked on the same, or similar, tech. He didn’t have the original to compare it to, but he’d seen his father’s notes. He’d seen his father’s notes on Captain America, too. The original tesseract could be the key to stopping the palladium poisoning that was slowly killing him.

“Okay, I might be interested, keep going,” Tony said.

“The Captain’s ship has recently been spotted on scanners,” Fury continued. “I’m putting together a team to go down, retrieve the Captain, and get out. Cap’s been asleep for seventy years. You’re the only link we have to his past--”

“Yeah, my father helped invent the guy, and I was held up to Cap’s standards. Not exactly someone I’ve got fond memories of,” Tony said.

“We need Cap, and we’d like to retrieve the Tesseract. Your nanotech is about the only thing we know of that can hope to get people onto the surface. Help us get Cap, we’ll let you study the Tesseract.”

“You know, assuming I don’t die in the process of retrieving him,” Tony pointed out.

“Meet Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. They’ll be part of your team, so we’ll need you to get to work. Soon.”

“Part?”

“There are a few other members, one a little more reluctant that you. He’s in quarantine right now. I’ll introduce you. Assuming you take the job.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Nothing,” Fury said. “We’ll do what we have to do, and we’ll let you go right back to that dive where you were drinking. Keeping in mind that there’s an AIM extraction team on its way to your location-- they arrived on planet about four hours ago, and there’s not a lot of running room around here.”

“You know, you could have lead with that,” Tony said. “Let’s get to work.”

“Right this way, Mr. Stark,” Natasha said.


	2. Horrible Working Conditions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Tony Stark Bingo Square R2 - quarantined!
> 
> So... Tony meets his co-worker and it goes about as well as can be expected. Also, Tony doesn’t like being told what to do. We knew that, right? I mean, like, we all knew that.

 

“So, what’s the deal with this guy?” Tony was staring at the man in the glass cage, although if someone had held a laser blaster to his head and asked him why, Tony might not have been able to say.

The man was, to start with, chained down tighter than a life pod in an asteroid field; the collar around his neck was attached to solid beams that were set into the floor, and his arms were stretched out, caught in heavy cuffs. He was forced onto his knees, head tipped slightly back to keep the collar from choking him, his hair thick curtains on either side of his face.

Despite that, there was a terrifying amount of power in the man’s body; thick thighs, powerful shoulders. He looked well and truly contained -- not even including the fact that he was inside a durasteel glass pod -- but also that there was more than enough reasoning for it. He was half naked, chest gleaming with sweat, his feet were bare. He should have looked vulnerable.

He didn’t.

But even that aside, the man had an arm made of metal, probably adamantium or a titanium alloy, based on the color. It was capped on his shoulder, surrounded by thick, pink scarring. Some of those scars looked as if the man had tried, more than once, to claw the arm _off_.

It was a lovely piece of tech and Tony had a sudden itch to put his hands on it. “Involuntary bodily modification is against the law,” Tony said, softly, aware that Fury hadn’t answered his commentary.

No one answered that one, either.

And on top of that, the man was gloriously beautiful, face like an angel, combined with just the right amount of attitude. He had a mouth made for kissing, a cleft chin, and eyes the color of blued steel. He was utterly, unspeakably perfect, and there was an ancient sadness in his gaze that made Tony ache to _do something_ for him.

“Hey,” Tony said, louder this time, “what is he in here for? Who is he? This is my team member?”

The man’s gaze snapped up to meet Tony’s, despite the fact that the duraglass should have shown him nothing but his own reflection from the inside. Despite the fact that he should not have been able to hear Tony from the inside.

“This,” Natasha said, her voice barely even carrying to Tony’s ears, but the way the man’s gaze shifted, Tony knew that he could hear, “is the Winter Soldier.”

Tony licked his lips. “Oh.”

“I see you’ve read the files.”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

There were people who didn’t think the Winter Soldier existed. He was the whispered rumor behind every big hit, and every bagged bounty. The Winter Soldier, one of the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunters; he wasn’t the bring ‘em back alive type, either. If someone could afford him, and the Winter Soldier took the job, a target better start putting away money for his funeral expenses.

Not much into mercy, the Winter Soldier.

Or failure.

“I don’t do that anymore,” the Winter Soldier said. His voice was low, smoother than silk, and darker than coffee. Lightly accented, and Tony couldn’t place it.

“We need you to fix him,” Fury said.

Tony choked on air. “Excuse me?”

Fury tapped his flexi, shooting files to Tony’s device. “The arm’s Hydra make,” Fury said. “We need you to take it off, disable the remote, any trackers, and download any data stored. Depending on what we find, we might need your help destroying it. We’ve got a lab set up in a detachable pod for you--”

Tony could read between the lines; the device was likely rigged to explode on any tampering, and Fury wanted to be able to eject the Winter Soldier, arm, and mechanic, in a single button press.

Lovely. “Good to know I’m considered expendable. You’re really not selling me on this whole team idea.”

“Me, either,” the Winter Soldier said, and he looked at Tony and he fucking _winked._

“This whole press-ganging thing sucks balls,” Tony said. “Are you gonna be awake for this, sunshine? Or do we need to knock you out? I’d prefer you to guide me through the whole arm thing… helps to have an expert opinion. But I’d also like to keep all my teeth.”

“Smile for me.”

“Huh?”

“I want to see if your teeth are worth it,” the Winter Soldier said.

Tony plastered on his press smile. He’d done it for decades, pretending to be happy when he was anything but. Sometimes, even he couldn’t tell the difference.

“I want th’ arm gone,” the Winter Soldier said. “They-- they did this to me, an’ I want it gone. Can you make a new one?”

Tony shrugged. “I’m Tony Stark,” he said, “and if you read the newscasts at all, you don’t need me to answer the question.”

“Stark?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“I’ll let you do the replacement.”

“Great. Let’s get to it, then, let him out, come on, chop chop,” Tony said. “Time’s wasting.”

***

“They really do not trust you,” Tony said, because they’d moved the duraglass cell entirely into the detachable pod.

“No,” the Winter Soldier said. “And they’re right not to. I can’t always control myself.”

“Sounds like a you-problem,” Tony said. The door slid down behind him, locking him in the pod-cum-workshop with the Winter Soldier. _I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me._

“All right, let’s see what we’ve got to work with. Tony sent a command out to his nanites that he’d left aboard Fury’s ship. Everything got very, very dark for a moment, and then, a vibrating clang echoed through the pod. “Pod detached, stealth activated.”

“What are you doing?”

“Well, glad you asked Winter Cupcake,” Tony said. “I love the sound of my own voice, so-- let there be light, God said, and there was-- Light.”

The pod’s lights came back on, and he pulled up several external screens. “The first thing these fuckers forgot is that you can’t trust a Stark not to meddle. I don’t really like being told what to do, either. That one’s a me problem, so we’ll just have to deal with things as they come.” There was more to it than that; Tony didn’t quite trust Fury, but he also wasn’t sure about the Winter Soldier. Better one person dead than hoping that Fury could push his damn button in time.

“So, here’s the deal, I hope you’re into enlightened personal interest, because otherwise, this trip is going to end really damn quick. I have dropped us off Fury’s ship, I’ve got manual control over the escape pod, and if my nanites detect my heart stopping-- they’ll vent the atmo from this pod, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Scorpion and the maiden, we both die. Got that?”

“I understand.”

“So, I don’t kill you, you don’t kill me, that’s the basics, here. And, astonishingly enough, Fury did trust me with a full, working pod, and a complete workshop, so, if we want to move this from ‘where can I drop you off’ to some sort of ‘how can we help each other,’ I’m eager to hear your suggestions.”

“We’re not going to go get Steve, then?”

“Steve?”

“Captain America,” the Winter Soldier said.

“Big bounty, I guess?”

“Probably, but that’s not why I asked. He’s… I knew him. He’s my friend.”

Tony blinked, and then he blinked again. “Wait, wait, what--”

“Steven Grant Rogers,” the Winter Soldier said, “is my best friend.”

“Holy shit, you’re _Bucky Barnes_ ,” Tony said. Well, that set all of Tony’s plans on end. Bucky Barnes, holy shit. He punched the release button for the duraglass cage, letting him go immediately.

Bucky rubbed at the back of his neck as soon as his arms were released. “Thanks, that was gettin’ tiresome.”

“Right, okay, then. Uh… let’s get that arm off you, okay?”

Bucky gave Tony a smile and it was like the sun coming up. “Let’s do that, then.”

***

“Things are never easy,” Tony muttered, tapping his fingers against the control panel, “but this is even worse than I imagined. And for me, that’s saying a lot.”

“Good imagination?”

“Bad luck,” Tony retorted. “Every time I think it can’t get worse, the universe says challenge accepted.”

“So, how bad is it?” Bucky wasn’t looking at his arm, staring instead up at Tony, which was somewhat disconcerting, since his eyes were blue and beautiful, and he wasn’t showing any fear. Someone strapped to a bomb ought to at least be a little concerned, right?

“Well, if my math is right, and my math is always right,” Tony said. “This little bit of nothing you got powering this prosthetic, if it’s removed improperly, could wipe out several large continents on Earth VII. It’s pure, solidified, cosmic energy. I don’t know where they got it from, but I hope to Tesla and Einstein that they don’t find any more of it. Why they’d use it to power your arm instead of duplicating the properties and building a bomb, I don’t know.”

“I am a weapon,” Bucky pointed out.

“Yeah, cupcake, I get that, but you’re also one man, and you’re not invincible.”

“Try me.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t think we’re going to be doing that today,” Tony said. He was barely breathing and his hands weren’t shaking at all as he used microforceps to remove the fleck of cosmic energy. “I think they made this from the same material as the Tesseract.”

“The thing that powers your heart?”

“Not quite the same, mine’s based off-- details, details. And, well, mine’s a lot safer.”

“So safe it’s killing you.”

“Point. But it’s not going to blow up and destroy half the moon,” Tony said. He dropped the power source very carefully into a gel suspension. “We’ll keep this.”

“Even though it’s a bomb?”

“It’s a bomb that runs your arm, and can power my heart,” Tony said. “Or, you know, run a space frigate. What I’m saying is, too dangerous to throw in the trash, and we might as well use it.”

“I can’t decide if you’re brave or foolhardy.”

“Is it too much to ask for both?” Tony wondered as he pulled out the various attachments. Now that Bucky’s arm wasn’t going to explode, it could be safely removed.

“What’s gonna run the new arm?” Bucky asked, sitting up and looking at the cap end where his arm used to be. Most people would be deep in dysphoric panic by this point; people not being used to having their limbs removed, but Bucky seemed almost calm.

“Thought you could wind it up in the morning, like an old-fashioned toy,” Tony said, then laughed. “Oh, that was excellent, I should prank you more often. That was a great expression there, Barnes.”

“Seriously, Stark, I’m leaning toward foolhardy.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Tony said. “But no, at least for the time being until I can get something more efficient, you’ll be charging off the nacelles that power the shuttle. Should be able to run for about eighteen hours, and then you’ll need to plug in for an hour or two. You can do it while you sleep. It’s not ideal, but it’ll work.”

“What if we need to be off the shuttle for more than eighteen hours?”

“Well, that’ll suck, won’t it?”

“Like a goddamn black hole,” Bucky said.


	3. Exit Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Tony Stark Bingo, Fill K3 - Alien Planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a big chunk of smut in the middle of this perfectly good plot :D
> 
> Pretty much the middle section marked with *** on either side, you can skip that.

“Here,” Bucky said, tapping the tiny little nav chart and blowing up the destination. Some destination, if you were interested in seas of near-frozen argon and a toxic atmosphere that could corrode most ship plating in about ten minutes.

“Yeah, well, at least you have an accurate drop-point,” Tony said. “The less time we spend here, the better.”

“How long can we spend there?”

“Theoretically, about eighteen minutes,” Tony said. “But in actual facts, you are not going anywhere. You are going to keep the pod at the lagrange point so that I can have a speedy extraction. Dive straight down, hook onto Cap’s pod, grab the Tesseract if I can find it, and haul jets out. That’s the plan, we get one chance, one attempt.”

Tony didn’t specifically say that he was trusting Bucky with both their lives, because Bucky knew it. If Bucky so much as moved the ship a mile from the extraction point, Tony was going to die.

On the plus side, it wasn’t going to hurt for long.

_Steve_ was probably not going to die, but he was still going to be stuck down there, and so Tony was hoping that was enough leverage. Because really, the pod’s autonav wasn’t that great. The kind of Weather that came from these uninhabitable crappy little balls of incomplete rock were beyond its capacity to reason out.

Mostly because sane people didn’t come to these sorts of places, so there weren’t really a lot of records to study and emulate.

Anyway--

“Plot in the course,” he told Bucky. “The trip’ll take a few hours with this dinky little hyperdrive, so I’m going to have a last shower, a last meal, and a last nap.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “It’s gonna take four hours, you honestly think you can sleep?”

Tony had slept under worse conditions. “You have a better idea?”

“If we’re plannin’ our last Will an’ Testament, then yeah, I got a better idea.”

***

Tony would never have imagined that Bucky could kiss like that. Or maybe it wasn’t that he couldn’t imagine it, it was that he hadn’t previously done so. It was deep, devouring, devoted. A lot of D words. It took Tony’s brain a second to realize what was going on, reboot into action mode, and get with the damn program, but in that time, Bucky had peeled his own shirt off and was working on the buttons to Tony’s without waiting for so much as a yes, a please, or anything.

Tony’s arms went around Bucky’s neck, running smoothly on autopilot, and his hand speared into that dark hair. It wasn’t love at first sight, Tony told himself. It wasn’t even lust at second glance. It was sheer survival instinct. Copulating either just before, or just after, a near death experience.

It was fine, it was good, and God, Bucky tasted like wine and promises, his tongue sweeping into Tony’s mouth possessively. Tony surrendered unconditionally, gave himself over to the moment. That was always his way, to leap first and look later. Sometimes you gotta run before you can crawl.

One warm hand, one chilly metal hand were on Tony’s hips, tugging him closer until he could feel the definitive pressure of Bucky’s interest. Tony’s heart was trotting along in his chest, obedient to the pace-maker and power source that kept him alive. It was always a strange feeling; he should be out of breath, he should have a racing pulse. And it seemed odd that he didn’t; but the hormone dump was happening anyway, waves of desire and eagerness coming over him in steady pulses.

“How about it, is this a better idea?”

“Maybe,” Tony whispered, because he couldn’t resist being an asshole whenever possible.

“Maybe,” Bucky repeated, grinding on Tony’s thigh and smirking when Tony answered that with a needy moan. “Maybe, he says.”

“Well, I’d just be using you for sex,” Tony explained, flippant, and possibly lying. He wasn’t sure. It’d been a long time for him, out on the Rim of Known Space, where any lover could have been an assassin.

This one, he thought, was one. Honesty. It was novel.

“Think I’ll survive,” Bucky said. “Ain’t a wilting flower.”

Tony slid his hand down the front of Bucky’s pants. “I’d say you’re not, at least.”

Bucky rocked into the touch, groaning.

“Still, this is probably a bad idea,” Tony said, which didn’t keep him from rubbing his palm against Bucky’s length, stroking and teasing and feeling himself getting hard, getting ready. “Attachment can cloud your judgement. You might make a stupid mistake, if you let yourself like me.”

Bucky found Tony’s ear, nipped at the shell, lavished it with warm breath, nipped at the lobe. “So tell me no.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” Tony said. “What I’m about to tell you is more, faster, harder.”

“I can do that,” Bucky said, and Tony found himself backed up the few steps until his knees hit the tiny bunk, and then he was pushed down on it. Bucky pushed himself into the vee of Tony’s thighs, rutting down against him, rubbing. Sweet friction, with sharp nips of his teeth against Tony’s neck, shoulder. “Like that?”

“More,” Tony said, and struggled to get his pants undone. They shifted and squirmed around, cursing the lack of space, the number of snaps, the sharp corners that seemed to find elbows and knees to catch at, but eventually enough nudity happened that they could curl together in the bunk, skin to skin.

Bucky stroked his skin, licked at his body, as if he already knew everything that Tony wanted, as if he’d done this a hundred times before. He touched, rubbing with just the right amount of friction, teased with just the right amount of amused cruelty, until they were both aching for it, needy and sweating and thrusting at each other.

Tony dug around in the bedside cabinet, thinking he would curse Fury with a lifetime supply of bad food and decaf if there wasn’t-- ah, there, lube, thank the stars.

“Roll over,” Tony ordered, and Bucky was keen enough to obey. Tony ran a hand down his body, livid scars and thick muscle. Beautiful, really. Like a map of the stars. Tony straddled him, his knees bracketing Bucky’s hips, rubbing them together. “You want to do this, or let me get us ready quick?”

“You,” Bucky said, his blue eyes all but black with lust-shot dilation. “Wanna watch, you do it, baby.”

“I’m just using you for sex,” Tony reminded him, his mouth twitching up in a sardonic smirk.

“So use me already.”

Tony lubed up his fingers and reached between his legs to start the process. Wet and stretch. He wasn’t gentle with himself, he didn’t take time to build up to it. He wanted, and he wanted it now, so now was what he was getting. He was almost grateful that Bucky’d refused the offer to tease him, even if they would learn each other better that way. Or maybe not. Maybe those soft, sniper’s eyes of his were memorizing everything that Tony did, every movement he made, ever sound that came out of his throat.

Didn’t matter. Soon enough, Tony was balanced over Bucky’s hips, hands planted on his chest, lowering himself onto Bucky’s cock.

They moved together, slick and slow. The liquid sound of their lovemaking filled the small cabin. Sometimes Bucky moaned, sometimes Tony gasped, and it kept going, thrusts and slides, the way they moved together, the way they were together.

Dreamy, languid, hot and slick, Tony lost himself in it, moving as if the whole goal was to move, to belong, to be with someone else. And not just someone, but that specific person. As if he’d lived his entire life for these few precious moments.

When pressure built, a tingle in his hips, a clenching of his thighs, curling of his toes, Tony was almost surprised.

Like he’d forgotten where all of this could lead.

Bucky was breathing harder, hips snapping up to meet Tony’s, his hands digging in, fingers tight on Tony’s thighs, and--

Tony shuddered all over and clenched, everything building to one pinprick of white hot, molten pleasure, before he gasped, quivered, and came, spurting over Bucky’s chest, dripping along his side, spilling onto the bed.

Beneath him, Bucky thrust up, again, the tight, hot feel of it almost too much, and then he was crying out, too, their sounds and screams intermingled into a song of wanton joy.

Tony collapsed onto him, trying to pant for breath and his chest aching when the modifications to his heart and lungs wouldn’t let him.

But it was okay. They could rest here, for a while.

They could rest.

Bucky chuckled after a while, petting Tony’s hair fondly. “I’m jus’ using you for sex,” he told Tony.

Tony managed to lift his head and give Bucky a not-particularly noteworthy glare. “Best news I’ve heard all day. When do you plan to use me again?”

***

Tony hooked the space-cable up to the coffin-like sleep capsule. He’d already checked and double checked. Cap was alive, in perfect hibernation. “Rogers is ready for transport,” he reported.

“Copy that,” Bucky’s voice filtered down to him through miles of space, atmosphere, under tons of ocean. “Seven minutes, eighteen seconds remaining on my mark. And mark.”

“No sign of the tesseract. Are we sure it’s down here?”

“It’s presumed. Five minutes, Tony, that’s all we can spare.”

“I’m looking, I’m looking. You got any readings for me on unusual energy output?”

“Everything on that ice ball is a fucking unusual energy output,” Bucky complained. “This shit’s wreaking havoc with our systems. Pretty lights and sounds, but useless.”

“Going to have to do it the old fashioned way, then,” Tony said. “Grope around and hope I get lucky.”

Tony searched, even as hard as it was to move under the sea, as cold as he was -- and he knew that the liquid around him was even colder -- and as dark as it was. He was pretty sure he’d read something, somewhere, about the tesseract glowing, so he should be able to see it, if he just got close enough.

“Four minutes, Tony.”

He looked under the pilot’s chair, around Cap’s fridge unit, in corners where it might have drifted in the tide.

“Three minutes.”

“Copy that.”

He half-swam, half pushed his way into the second bay, even darker with no windows to catch the glow of the primary, so far away.

“Two minutes, Tony, go back to the capsule.”

“I hear you.”

“Tony!”

“Wait, wait, I’ve got it,” Tony said, seeing a glimmer of blue, impossibly far away. He’d never make it and make it back in time, but-- he had to try, didn’t he? If he didn’t get it, he was as good as dead in less than a month anyway, right?

“One minute, Tony, turn around!”

“I told you not to get attached.”

“Tony, please!”

Tony’s hand closed on the cube, which flared to life and awareness in his hands.

“Haul him up, Barnes,” Tony said, staring at the device in his hands, the sheer power of it shaking him all the way down to his core. “I can’t get back, you have to save one life.”

“Tony--”

Tony touched his ear, turning off the comm unit.

“Show me,” he said to the tesseract, twisting the cube and letting the stone inside it float in mid air near him. “Show me everything.”

***

Tony almost didn’t make it in time; the suit’s integrity was showing at less than three percent when he finally made the Space Stone take him where he needed it to, just inside the airlock.

He stepped through the portal, a rip in the fabric of space, just in time to see Bucky, standing over Cap’s pod, slam that metal fist into the reinforced wall.

“Uh, can I convince you not to compromise hull integrity?” Tony wondered, letting the helmet dissolve and gasping for air.

“Tony, you son of a bitch, what the hell?” And then Tony was being hugged too hard to explain. “Stars, you’re cold--”

Bucky pulled away, already shivering.

“Yeah, it’s not comfortable down there,” Tony said. “Luckily, I found a faster way to travel.” He held up the cube with the Space Stone tucked back neatly inside.

“Is, uh… that--”

“Yep.”

“So, now we can travel to anywhere in the universe?”

“In seconds.”

“Great. Because Steve needs a doctor,” Bucky said, nodding slowly, like he was planning out a route. “And I need a great deal of Asgardian mead. And then we need a really nice, big bed.”

“Still just using me for sex?”

“Once you warm up a bit,” Bucky said.

“Sounds like an agenda,” Tony replied. “I think I can rig this into the hyperdrive as a temporary measure.”

“I’ll get you a cup of coffee and let you get to work,” Bucky said.

“I think I might be using you for more than just sex,” Tony said, reverently.

“Best news I’ve heard all day.”


End file.
